Wednesday, November 21, 2012

One Pot Meal #1 - Hippo Grandma’s Stew Mui Choy Pork Belly 梅菜扣肉

My grandma is a good teochew and Hokkien cuisine
cook. But she passed away too young before I have the chance to learn all her
skills.

Luckily my mom learnt a few dishes from her, and
this is one of my favourite dish. I have bad cravings for Mui Choy Kou Yok so I
gate crash my mom house to learn about this dish on last weekend afternoon.
Haha!

To prepare this dish is not tough, this is a very easy and simple dish to
prepare especially when you are too busy to prepare a proper 3 dish 1 soup meal,
this will be a very good choice. Just a bowl of rice, tadah! Gao dim!

(Remarks: Soaking is to reduce the saltiness of mui choy,
soaking time will depends on the saltiness of mui choy you get.)

2. Clean the pork belly and cut into big cube.

3. Wring out the excess water from mui choy and cut them
into about 1cm length.

4. Heat up cooking oil in a wok and fry the chopped garlic
till fragrant (pic 1), put in the pork belly and stir fry till the surface is
cooked. (pic 2), now put in the garlic bulb and mui choy, stir fry for
awhile (pic 3 & 4). Pour in the dark soy sauce and stir fry till all mui choy is coated with dark soy sauce, (Pic
5, this step is also to fry till the dark soy sauce is fragrant.) Pour in hot water to cover the mui choy for stew. (pic 6)

5. Bring the pot of mui choy to boil for 20-30mins then lower the flame to
small medium and stew till the pork and mui choy is soft. In a normal pot/earth pot, it
should takes about 1.5-2hrs for the stewing process. Now, it’s ready to serve.

Notes from Hippomama:

1. Make sure you wash and rinse thoroughly to remove the tiny sand or dirt leave in the mui choy.

2. For unfinished mui choy, you can heat up and leave it in pot for next day consume. The longer the mui choy is boil, the tastier it is!